One of the fundamental problems people often make when creating a design for custom t-shirts is  over using the stroke function in Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. While stroking a design element for a custom t-shirt design can be visually appealing it is not the correct way to set-up files. Printers who make a living doing screen printed custom t-shirts know the pitfalls of using strokes in art when separations need to be created, especially for dark garments. Custom t-shirts that will be printed digitally do not get affected by this topic.

The alternative to stroking a graphic element is slightly more complicated but yields cleaner and better results. For Adobe Illustrator users we strongly urge you to learn the “Outline Paths” technique. Using this tool reduces the need for strokes in a piece of custom t-shirt art entirely. By using this technique and eliminating all strokes in a piece of t-shirt art creates cleaner paths in general and allows for seamless compound paths and masks. We are not going to provide direct instruction in this article but we are pointing you in the right direction.

In our factories, cheap custom t-shirts are printed without strokes or traps. Please take this into account when designing custom screen printing designs for our print room. We are always available to answer any questions at 800-709-2380.  

03/10/2010